FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT VICTAULIC - PAGE 5

Just days after letting go more than 100 employees at its Forks Township plant, pipe couplings maker Victaulic Co. of America said it will slash an additional 139 manufacturing jobs at the facility on Friday. Victaulic is heavily dependent on the commercial construction industry. A spokesman said the same sluggish economic conditions that forced 106 layoffs on Oct. 20 are driving the need for additional staff reductions. The two rounds add up to 37 percent of the plant workers at the Kesslerville Road campus, reducing the total to 410. "We make this move very reluctantly and we would have hoped this could have been avoided," said Victaulic spokesman Jim Renner.

Unionized workers arrive this morning at Victaulic's pipe manufacturing plant in Forks Township no closer to getting a new contract than when they left Friday. Despite the company's rejection of their latest offer Friday, 550 members of the United Steelworkers of America Local 2599 will continue to work without a contract and will seek another bargaining session with a federal mediator, said union President Jerry Green. Victaulic also has plants in Palmer Township, Allentown and Alburtis.

About 100 Victaulic Co. of America workers began returning to the job this weekend after approving a new contract that ended a 10-week strike at the company's Alburtis plant. Workers on Saturday narrowly approved a four-year deal, more than two months after hitting the picket lines following rejection of a similar deal. Members of the United Steelworkers struck the plant on July 1 after turning down contracts that fell short of their demands for better wages. Throughout the strike, the union said it wanted more money and Victaulic said it would hold firm on its stance of making no further offers.

Union employees at Victaulic plants in Palmer and Forks townships have agreed to a three-year contract that gives up cost-of-living increases in exchange for not contributing toward their health insurance. The new pact covers about 560 members of the United Steelworkers of America. They have been working under an extension of a contract that expired Dec. 12. The new agreement was approved Saturday in a 407-89 vote at Nazareth High School. "The cost-of-living increase was eliminated to pay for the health insurance for the next three years," said Charles Zebrowski, sub-district director with the USW, Bethlehem.

The emergence of a global marketplace poses a dual challenge to many U.S. companies -- heightened foreign competition at home on the one hand, and establishing a presence abroad on the other. Though much publicized, this phenomenon has not had a dramatic impact on Victaulic. Although we are a worldwide organization, the U.S. remains our most promising market. Within certain sectors, we are experiencing competition from low price, lower quality offshore products. Ultimately however, domestic contractors demand manufacturer support, reliable delivery and field service for ongoing projects.

A new corporation headed by Easton attorney Joseph Reibman has purchased a section of the former Victaulic Co. of America complex in Easton and West Easton for an undisclosed price and plans to lease it for light manufacturing, warehouse and distribution space. Reibman, who proposed the Glendon incinerator, said yesterday he and two unidentified local individuals have combined to form Lehigh Drive Industrial Park Inc. The property, four buildings on 12 acres, was purchased from Family Service America, a Milwaukee-based umbrella organization representing 300 social agencies.

Workers at Victaulic, the largest remaining unionized steelworkers shop in the Lehigh Valley, are being asked to agree to what their leader calls ugly contract concessions. The Forks Township pipe couplings manufacturer wants workers to accept a tiered contract that would force workers whove remained employed there to accept a wage freeze and pay more for their health care, union head Jerry Green said Sunday. Any workers who have been or are laid off and are then called back would be forced, under the proposed three-year contract, to accept less pay, Green said.

The Hoover Dam, Independence Mall, Oriole Park at Camden Yards and the Taipei Tower. Inside some of the most famous structures in the world, Victaulic Co. couplings have been quietly holding pipes together for decades. Few know details about the manufacturing company. In fact, the identity of Victaulic's owner is a secret. Top executives won't reveal the identity, and the company's union leaders say they don't know it. But Victaulic, a privately held Forks Township company that cultivated its low profile, is opening up. John Malloy, the company's chief executive officer, sat down with reporters from The Morning Call to talk about its operations and efforts to stay competitive.

Union workers at a Forks Township pipe manufacturer chose Sunday to reject a new contract proposal from their employer. The employees at Victaulic Inc. voted down the contract by "a meaningful margin," said Jerry Green, president of United Steelworkers of America Local 2599, which represents the workers. They also voted unanimously to return to work while the union and Victaulic continue negotiations. "They had many concerns about the proposal," including worries about health insurance costs and the new wage offer from the company, Green said Sunday.

U.S. Army troops in Iraq rely on a fuel pipeline to keep vehicles running, and the Army relies on a Forks Township company for the couplings that hold the pipeline together. In the deserts of Iraq and Kuwait, specially-designed Victaulic couplings connect the largest tactical fuel supply system ever built, according to reports from the front. At the start of the war, the pipeline was capable of carrying 800,000 gallons a day of specialized military diesel fuel to a point in Kuwait near the Iraqi border, according to the trade publication Engineering News-Record.